Freelance Principal Product Designer

Start date Monday, 22nd June

Immediate Interviews

3-month initial contract duration (likely to extend)

£ day rate OUTSIDE IR35

2 days / week in office working / 3 days per week remote working.

As a Principal Product Designer, you are a discipline expert. You set the benchmark for quality and best practice. You are passionate about what you do and motivate those around you. You are a strong consultant who can foster positive and trusted relationships with our clients.

You're comfortable providing end-to-end product design leadership across a multi-team programme, as well as high-value consulting services to shape a client’s digital product strategy or to develop and launch early product initiatives to prove their value to senior stakeholders.

You are a people person and, as a trusted advisor, you develop rapport with your team and clients. You are an integral part of the product team at Red Badger and a client-facing cross-functional team working in Lean/Agile ways of working. You are responsible for coaching and supporting the designers on the project and at Red Badger.

You support the definition of Red Badger’s overall product direction and strategy. You're proactive in championing user needs. You take the team on the journey with you, so we’re building the right thing together. You are comfortable working closely and hands-on in the Product and Technology teams to build the thing right, iterating fast and often. You inspire and support the design team in developing their careers and becoming the best versions of themselves.

You will be reporting into the Business Unit (Cell) Product Director, working closely with a cross-functional project or programme leadership team consisting of an Account Director, other Principal roles, Delivery lead and Tech lead to ensure high quality of delivery of what is right for the client and their customers, and to support sales and recruitment activities for the cell.

You must be comfortable with a hybrid working environment. Our default working practice will be UK-based remote work, but we continue to see in-person work as an important part of how we work (i.e., not optional), and expect Badgers to be available to attend the office and/or client site with suitable notice. As a consultancy, our remote/in-person balance will change depending on the nature of the work and the clients we work with.

As a Principal Product Designer, you will focus on

Successfully delivering client outcomes across multiple teams and programmes

Consulting the client to define and execute a winning product strategy

Ensuring the quality of digital product development using Human-centred, Lean and Agile methodologies

Empowering, coaching, mentoring and supporting product designers

Product Discipline Leadership

Key Responsibilities

Discipline expertise

Lead and support the design strategy and implementation from discovery through to delivery

Focus on delivering value with your designs, while balancing agility in delivery with holistic thinking

Design and facilitate business value proposition and other creative workshops and design sprints

Work within a cross-disciplinary digital team on design and front-end implementation through creation of design systems, style guide, prototypes and other assets to bring product ideas to life

Work in Agile/Lean methodologies to experiment and make data-driven decisions for your designs

Drive continuous improvement and quality by championing design principles and the value they bring

Engage clients and your team to ensure the proposed design balances business goals and technical constraints in addition to user needs

Seed and scale design strategy and systems across a programme of work.

Collaborative leader

As a leader and consultant, you inspire and influence to take people on a journey and get shared and early buy-in for the design process and the outcomes

Contribute at a leadership level to the overall success of the Red Badger client engagement with commercial awareness and input into account strategy

Coach and align your team and your clients on Design Thinking, Lean, and Human-Centred Design

Guide and support colleagues and stakeholders through the divergent and convergent cycles in the process and make them feel safe in the ambiguity and discomfort through tact, empathy and conviction

Work with Directors on sales activities supporting shaping and closing new sales opportunities

Collaborate with the Principal Delivery and Technology roles to give delivery teams space and autonomy to thrive

Support product roadmap activities to shape user-centric backlog and high-value delivery outcomes.

Trusted advisor to clients

As an influencer, you collaborate with clients and stakeholders to deliver business and user value through great product strategy and exceptional designs that delight the users

Communicate with confidence about your designs and decisions with a broad range of stakeholders to successfully influence long-lasting change

Set and implement a product design strategy and framework to solve large-scale and complex problems for our clients

Align and actively manage a broad range of stakeholders on the product strategy and desired outcomes through influence and diplomacy

Advocate and introduce user-centred, lean/agile processes to your clients

Able to break down complex concepts to communicate the value of design and recommended approach to a wide range of stakeholders.

Build Red Badger design capability

Active contributor to developing the product design discipline within Red Badger

Care for people’s careers and wellbeing

Line-manage, support and inspire designers and motivate them to develop

Support recruitment and growth of the design disciplines

Proactively share knowledge with the rest of the team and elevate the design discipline within Red Badger

Support the development of Red Badger’s design approach and strategy

Fostering and facilitating a culture of valuable design criticism and feedback

Elevate the role of design within the company and the industry.

Contribute to Red Badger’s place in the industry

Provide product and design discipline thought leadership and contribute to the growth of the Red Badger brand in the industry

Write and speak publicly about our design work and practices

Champion Red Badger’s ways of working: cross-functional teams, continuously delivering value, building quality

Be an ambassador for Red Badger, and an advocate for ‘doing the right thing’, ‘doing the thing right’ by supporting and enabling others to do so

Your experience

It’d be great if you have

Strong experience working in lean/agile methodologies, including with Scrum and Kanban

Strong working knowledge of industry-standard tools, such as Figma, plus aptitude to learn and introduce new tools and methodologies

Experience leading product design implementation and practices as part of a cross-functional team or programme working closely with engineers, data insights, user research and quality assurance disciplines

Consulting experience working with clients, presenting design concepts and leading on product strategy development and implementation

Extensive experience in all digital product lifecycle phases from discovery and influencing product backlog to delivery, bringing digital user-centric products to life

Experience designing complex digital product solutions across multiple channels like mobile-first responsive web applications and mobile native apps

Hiring and line management experience including coaching and mentoring

Ability to contextualise your product design decisions and recommendations to persuade clients through empathy and diplomacy

In-depth knowledge and strong practitioner experience of

Human-Centered Design

Design Thinking

User Experience Design

Visual Design

Business value proposition

Deep understanding of

Brand application

UI design

Design systems such as Atomic design

Good working knowledge of

User research

User testing

It’d be amazing if you can also